"Okay. One of you is responsible for this mess. As I said before, this was either done on purpose or one of you is incredibly incompetent."
"Rude."
Michelle had been the one to say that. It just came out almost like a reaction.
Thankfully, the only person who heard just sniggered in response.
"Now, with this incident and all the problems that were seen upstairs, I am inclined to think this was done on purpose. Someone is sabotaging the Merchants Guild. To what end, I do not know."
With the ants having been dealt with, Michelle had headed back to the illusion she left, and thankfully, no one was the wiser to the fact that it wasn't her. But, before anything further could happen, the Peacekeeper had returned to locate the culprit.
"With the chaos that happened at the Peace Festival, several others and I are inclined to think that maybe… this was all done by the same person."
The workers all just looked around at each other upon hearing that. To think that someone here had caused all this chaos, as well as the devastation at the fifth anniversary of the peace festival.
"Now, it is possible that one of you workers is the culprit behind all of this mess."
"Not unless they escaped."
Surprisingly, that wasn't herself saying that. The person who mentioned the culprit escaping was among the people standing behind the peacekeepers.
"Sir", the Peacekeeper said as he turned to the man behind him. "We Peacekeepers arrived shortly after the incident occurred. We saw no one coming up the stairs when we arrived, and there are no other exits from the warehouse. Whoever did this is still here."
The man at the back slowly walked forward. He didn't look like much, but his demeanour made it clear he had quite the authority here.
"There were no exits. But as you can see, there are several now. All they would have needed to do was hide, wait for you to head up to the atrium, then go up one of the holes and escape."
"Damn, I should have done that," Oriana muttered under her breath.
"Possibly, but that seems unlikely. Now, will you please let me do my job?" the peacekeeper asked.
A quick nod of the head from the man at the back, and the Peacekeeper turned back to the workers.
"Now, I am going to interview each of you individually. Everyone else should remain where you are."
---
"This is taking so long." Oriana moaned in her head. So far, she had not been called in, and only a few other workers had been questioned.
"I got into this job to make life more fun. This…this is not fun."
"Okay, next," called the voice from the room nearby.
This call prompted the guy in front of her to stand up.
"…"
This was all so very tedious. Especially since she already knew how this would go.
Oriana was not an idiot. After checking how the interview went for the other workers, she knew what he would ask.
And she had the answers all lined up.
And so she waited.
And several minutes later, she heard it.
"Next"
---
"So, you're new."
"Y-yes. I only started a few days ago."
"So, you start working here, and then all sorts of problems happen. How do you explain that?"
"I-I don't know. But, I swear it was not me. You-you can ask Bethany, she said I made some mistakes in my work, but none of them caused the problems upstairs. Working here is my dream job. I would never do anything like this."
"I see." The man said as he made a note to ask Bethany about the new hire.
"Right, where were you when the ants escaped?"
Michelle looked up in thought and then pointed in the direction opposite the ants' crate.
"I was over there. The supervisor said to get familiar with placing the labels on the crates and the documents for them, so I was wandering around checking them all."
He made another note to check with the supervisor that this was right.
"Huh. Did you see anyone else around?" he asked.
"Err, yes. I d-don't know their names yet, but I saw the man with the large glasses and red hair, as well as the very big guy with the bald head."
"Big guy with a bald head describes five of the workers here."
"Ah, he had a large birthmark on his head or something."
"I see." he said as he wrote down her response.
The man muttered to himself about something, but Oriana couldn't hear.
"Alright, last question, did you see anyone running into any of the ant tunnels?"
"The ant tunnels, no, not that I can recall. I was waiting throughout the whole incident"
"Okay…" He sighed and rubbed his head.
"You can head back out to the rest of the workers. You can leave when I have finished the rest of the interviews."
"T-thank you."
And with that, what should have been a stressful interrogation/interview came to a close, with Oriana not breaking a sweat.
---
Once the interviews were done. The Peacekeeper came out to inform them that they were innocent.
"It would seem that the one who caused this mess…may have escaped through one of the tunnels. Because of that, you are all free to go."
A lot of sighs of relief were exhaled from the workers, Michelle included, to make it look like she was scared. And then, they all started to flood out of the warehouse and up the stairs.
It's good to have contingencies, such as ensuring the other workers can see you when a crime is taking place elsewhere.
As she left with the rest of the workers, what Oriana did not notice was the man who had been standing behind the main Peacekeeper. For some reason, as she headed out of the room, he kept his eyes on her.
---
"So, because of all the damage, no one is allowed to come into work tomorrow. People will be brought in to help repair the building, including mages, who will be in all day tomorrow to deal with the worst of the damage. You are expected to return to work the day after tomorrow."
People began to raise their voices, bombarding the man at the Merchants Guild entrance with questions.
"Yes, yes. Don't worry. You will still be paid as if you worked, don't worry. You just can't come in because it's too unsafe. Now, head on home and enjoy your day off. You can use it to prepare for the celebration later this week."
The man at the entrance to the Merchants Guild, having pulled them all over to explain the situation, quickly shoed them off after that, leaving everyone to head off home.
Which is exactly where Oriana headed to as well, ensuring to remove her illusion in an alleyway on the way there.
"A celebration. I wonder what this is about…is it something I could get involved with, I wonder."
She couldn't help but reminisce about the time at the peace festival.
Heading back, she quickly grabbed a pastry from a nearby stall, leaving a pastry-shaped piece of mud that looked like the original, for the next consumer.
As she continued, the day was drawing to a close, with darkness descending. It truly made the world seem much more mysterious and dangerous.
Something that seemed to be a fact, as she heard what sounded like shouts and screams from a nearby street.
---
Reaching the street, Oriana found a scene that was quite uncommon in this city.
Even with the class hierarchy and the slums area, violence was hardly seen out and about on the streets in this age of peace.
Before her, she could see two men robbing a woman, trying to steal her bags and the jewellery that she had on her.
It seemed the street had very little traffic, as they were the only ones there, which was likely helped by the approaching darkness.
Now, Oriana was not some bleeding heart or a hero. Not at all.
But, seeing something like this, where she has the means to do something about it, well, why wouldn't she?
She did know right from wrong.
With a good amount of concentration, she focused on the street entrance and conjured an illusion, using a scene from today as a reference.
She was also skilled enough that she could also create other types of illusions, not just visible ones. Although she can currently only do a few basic things.
Like create footsteps.
Loud footsteps from several Peacekeepers running down the street.
It was a sight to behold. Practically a platoon of Peacekeepers was charging down the street towards the two thugs, thundering along. It didn't take long for them to look up and see them coming.
A squeak was all that managed to manifest from the thugs, as they turned tail and ran away, leaving the woman to recover, and thankfully, with her bags and jewellery still with her.
As they headed down the street and turned the corner, Oriana let the illusion drop, causing the Peacekeepers to just vanish into thin air.
Something that Oriana realised the woman had just seen, given the look of confusion on her face.
"Ah, crap. I should have kept the illusion up till it got to the end of the street."
Well, now that she had realised this, Oriana continued on her way.
She had saved the woman; that was enough. To ensure that her ability to use illusion magic was kept hidden, she would not be heading over to check on her, exposing her face for the woman to see. Even if she used another illusion on herself, it was still a little risky, now that the woman knew the magic she could use.
It was bound to be found out that she had illusion magic as she caused more and more chaos in the future. But until then, the fewer people who know, even this random stranger, the better.
Granted, what Oriana didn't know was that the woman she had saved happened to have rather exceptional eyesight. Whether it was through genes or magic, it did not matter, but it did mean that she had managed to see her saviour as she left the scene.
A sight that caused a slight smile to form on the woman's face once she saw Oriana.